Hills Boy - I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to post such a detailed post.

We are (hopefully) coming out to SA this year. Unfortunately, the UK property market has nosedived, so we were getting very depressed about what we could afford to buy out there. Your post has made me consider Mount Barker as a possible area to live and I like what I see.

So, I suppose, the next question is, are there good schools there or is it the norm to send your children to school in the city?

No problem.

Don't have school age kids here (or in the UK before we moved) so have no experience of the education system in either country and it's not something I've needed to know anything about.

I catch the bus into the city for work and while school kids do get off at various places along the way quite a few get off in the city. In the case of one bloke I know, two of his kids go to a school here in the Hills, while the other one goes to school in the city. So I'm not in a position to say whether it's the norm or not, but it does happen. Sorry I can't give you more information on this one.

Mt Barker has its attractions; it's the largest town in the Hills by some distance and is the 'hub' for this part of the Hills. A number of the larger chain stores are there (Harvey Norman) or moving in (Dick Smith) - these names might mean nothing to you though. Some people feel that Mt Barker's getting too big (and expensive?) and move out to other places (Nairne and Littlehampton are quite close by and are both growing).

We looked at a number of houses there, but we found the place too big for us and the places we liked would have been quite a drive from the centre of the town anyway. So, we opted to buy in a small village where we can walk to the shops (10-15mins), but we do our main shopping in Mt Barker (20mins by car).